Elf Scan 17: Matra MS 80 Grand Prix Car

After a solid season in 1968 with the MS 10, Matra-Ford went all the way in 1969 with the Championship-winning MS 80, piloted by Jackie Stewart.  In the great action shot above, he's shown airborne at the Nurburgring.

Elf Scan 16: Matra MS 10 Grand Prix Car

The MS 10 was the first true F1 car designed by Matra. The French team was actually managed by Englishman Ken Tyrell, with Jackie Stewart as lead driver. Matra were in the midst of developing their own proprietary V12 engine, but sourced the Ford Cosworth DFV as an interim powerplant. In the end, the Ford V8 was to prove itself a reliable workhorse, powering Stewart to his championship the following season, in 1969.

Elf Scan 15: Jean Vinatier and his Alpine A110

Note the driving mocassins!

Elf Scan 14: Formule France

Close your eyes and try to list as many French F1 drivers as you can from the early 60s.  Pretty hard, huh?  After Jean Behra died in 1959, it was basically the aging Maurice Trintignant who represented France on the Grand Prix circuit until the mid 60s.  As a result of this dearth of young talent, the French motor racing industry created a driver development program, starting with the Renault Gordini cup.  As a next rung, they created Formule France in 1968, which was a single seater formula using the same engine and gearbox as the Renault 8 Gordini.  It was essentially the equivalent of the Skip Barber Formula series in today's terms. If you close your eyes again, and try to list French drivers from after 1968, and into the 70s, it becomes a heck of a lot easier!  Thanks to increased investment from Elf, Matra, Renault, and other motorsport players of the era, French driving talent finally began to blossom again in Grand Prix racing for the first time since before the Second World War when drivers like Dreyfus and Chiron were in their prime.

Elf Scan 13: Jean-Pierre Jabouille

Jean-Pierre Jabouille started his racing career in the Renault 8 Gordini single-make series.  After a promising start, he scraped enough cash together to purchase a Brabham Formula 3 car, and was the only independent entry to qualify for that year's Monaco F3 race. After varied success he joined the Alpine team, racing for then in F3, F2 as well as sports cars.  When this photo was taken, his glory days in F1 and Le Mans racing were still ahead of him.  He is still with us today, and was more recently head of Peugeot Sport before starting his own racing team.